Slashgeo

Both Ogle Earth and the Google Earth Blog share enthusiastic reviews of 3DConnexion's SpaceNavigator input device which allows six degrees of freedom, able to control Google Earth, SketchUp and more to come. From Ogle Earth: "But does it work? Oh yeah. After about 2 minutes my left hand disappeared and I began to mind-meld with Earth. Think Rotate and that's what Earth does. Push in and you zoom in. It's a completely new level of control, and it's completely addictive. The sensitivity is proportionate to your altitude, so at sea level you can work with sub-meter precision. Zoom out and you can traverse the world in a second. Look up above the horizon if you like, or pan, zoom and rotate all at once. You can make yourself queasy without trying very hard."

A few geobloggers previously shared their experience with 3DConnexion's SpaceNavigator. What it is? This input device replaces your mouse allowing you to navigate within virtual globes. Google Earth is supported (even the Mac version with GE 4.1), ArcMap 9.2 and NASA World Wind and even Microsoft's web-based Virtual Earth is supported along with various other apps such as SketchUp. Read more below for my "review".

Logitech announced the SpaceNavigator input device now supports ESRI applications. Here's my own review of the SpaceNavigator last spring. After using it myself, I do believe geoprofessionals can actually improve their efficiency with such a device, and it's fun to use. From this Spatially Adjusted entry: "In ArcMap, you don’t have a 3D view, but it works well for the 2D environment. The zoom/pan/rotate works well for navigating. The rotate function of the SpaceNavigator is a real time saver as you can rotate as easily as panning and zooming. I was very productive using the SpaceNavigator with my left hand and using my mouse with the right. We’ll see how my opinion changes with time, but right now any ArcGIS user can improve their productivity whether or not they use 3D." See also related stories below.

The Earth Is Square blog brings us news about this. Hop over there to view the video. Here is their summary : "Rgosh from the WorldWindCentral fourm has some code he has developed to make the SpaceNavigator work in Linux for WWJava."